Encountering the Life among us in beloved Community

LoveCity.

“No more Love City. Just because there’s no love city doesn’t mean there’s no love!”

I am sometimes taken aback at the messages that write themselves on my heart. Here, at a JYM retreat, was one of them.

The kids had constructed a “Love city” out of cardboard boxes over the weekend. It eventually succumbed to rain and the recycling pile. It was a valuable exercise in holding the question “If Love was a city, what would it look like?” in a very tangible process of building.

So by the end of the weekend, our soggy city was gone. But Love was fully present. As it always is. What if we lose our meetinghouses, our structures, the ways in which we see how we are to be effective and useful? We can build new structures. The Love remains. No mater how much we try to squelch it, to avoid it, to not hear its clear call among our human distractions and concerns and constructs. The youngest among us figured that out, and modeled it for us this weekend. What a gift to watch and remember. Best use of cardboard I can imagine!